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Press Freedom Review: 2005 a dark year
World Association of Newspapers
November 14, 2005

http://www.wan-press.org/article8600.html

Press freedom and media development continue to be a major challenge in scores of countries around the world.

Publishers and editors in many nations daily put their own lives or those of their staff at risk, by simply printing the next issue. Some worry they will be prevented from going to press at all, or that the issue will be confiscated from newsstands. The financial burden is so high for others that they wonder whether the paper will even have the resources to continue publishing.

Although the number of slain journalists has decreased in the past six months, the figures are still too high. Twenty-two journalists have been murdered since June 2005, bringing the annual death toll to 51. Hundreds more have been assaulted, arrested and threatened. WAN estimates that more than 500 journalists have been imprisoned this year.

Iraq remains a deadly place to practice journalism. Eight journalists have been murdered in the past six months, bringing the total number for this year to nineteen.

The suffocation of independent media continues unabated in countries around the world. The governments of China, Cuba, Nepal, Belarus and Zimbabwe persist in their relentless onslaught against the media. Silence from North Korea, Eritrea, Libya and Turkmenistan sends an explicit message concerning the state of the media behind their fortified walls.

Asia remains the worst region in the world for practising journalism, for the sheer number of persecuted journalists, lack of independent media outlets, and government repression of press freedom.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Journalists killed = Democratic Republic of Congo (1), Sierra Leone (1)c, Somalia (1)

Press freedom problems in Africa are punctuated by severe economic constraints, endemic problems of weak infrastructure, and a lack of resources, inadequate training facilities and the continued use of restrictive press laws. TDespite these challenges, a vibrant press exists in Nigeria, Uganda and a number of southern African states.

Press freedom in Chad suffered a blow over the summer months with the handing of prison sentences to four journalists on charges of defamation and inciting hatred. One of the journalists incarcerated was Sy Koumbo Singa Gali, publisher of the popular independent weekly L’Observateur, who spent a number of weeks in prison after publishing an interview with an imprisoned colleague. An appeals court overturned three of the convictions; a fourth was allowed to stand, but the journalist was freed based on the prison time he already served. Although all have now been released, the spate of jailings sends a clear message to independent media regarding President Idriss Deby’s intolerance to criticism.

The famine that has gripped Niger over the past year shows no signs of abating, and journalists are feeling the backlash as criticism of the government’s actions during the crisis increases. Two journalists faced jail in September for reporting on the corrupted practices in the distribution of food-aid by a state governor.

Journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo contend with an almost constant threat of imprisonment and assault for their professional activities. Ongoing political instability and virtual lawlessness in outlying regions of the country mean hazardous conditions for journalists. Radio stations are regularly suspended, and journalists are harassed and assaulted by both soldiers and rebel forces. Journalists working in the capital are often arrested and detained for questioning over articles, and criminal defamation is liberally used in attempts to tether the country’s feisty print media community. The 3 November murder of Franck Kangundu, political editor of the Kinshasa-based daily newspaper La Reference Plus, is a sober reminder that the welfare of journalists in the capital, much like their counterparts in the provinces, cannot be assured.

Day-to-day survival is the biggest challenge for media companies in Togo, which not only suffer from lack of training, resources and infrastructure, but also contend with a virtually non-existent advertising market and a government that remains relatively hostile to the private press.

Ethiopia became a particularly unaccommodating country for journalists in June and July, as harassment and detention of the press rose significantly following the May parliamentary elections. In June, five local journalists working for foreign news agencies had their accreditation revoked, and six editors from the Amharic-language press were detained and questioned over articles they had published during the election period. A prominent newspaper distributor was arrested and detained twice over the summer months.

Eritrea remains one of the world’s largest jailors and the continent’s worst press freedom offender.

Currently no independent media exist in the country, and a total of 15 journalists are believed to remain in prison. More than four years after they were detained and placed in state custody, the fate of these journalists is still not known.

The murder of a journalist in Somalia in June brings the country’s total this year to two. Radio journalist Duniya Muhiyadin Nur, was shot and killed on 5 June while covering a protest. A BBC correspondent was shot and killed in the capital earlier this year.

The independent media in Gambia limp along as President Jammeh continues to systematically stamp out criticism in the country. The killers of Deyda Hydara remain free and his newspaper, The Point, is under serious financial duress. The only other private newspaper, The Independent, still cannot find a printing company to replace the printing press that was torched last year in an arson attack.

Despite relative stability since 2002, press freedom in Sierra Leone has two serious blemishes on its record. 4 October marked the one-year anniversary of the incarceration of veteran editor and publisher Paul Kamara, who was sentenced in 2004 to two concurrent years in prison for seditious libel. The editor, who founded For Di People, one of the country’s longest standing newspapers, is the only journalist in jail in the country. The media community suffered another blow when, in July, acting editor Harry Yansaneh succumbed to injuries sustained during an assault a few months previously.

In Sudan, President Al Bashir’s decision to lift the state of emergency on 10 July led to cautious optimism within the media community. An August raid on the printing press that produces the Al Watan and Al Wan newspapers in Khartoum during which security forces ordered the presses stopped and confiscated all available copies of the papers, however, dampened hopes for changes in conditions for private media. Promises by leaders in both the southern and northern parts of the country to cease interfering with the independent press must be followed up by actions for any concrete improvements in press freedom to be felt.

In Zimbabwe, the August acquittal of Daily News journalist Kelvin Jakachira on charges of violating the country’s press laws by working without accreditation from the government-controlled Media and Information Commission was a small, but significant victory for press freedom in the country. The victory, however, did little to counter disappointment over the fact that The Daily News’ two-year legal battle to resume publishing continues. The Daily News is Zimbabwe’s only privately owned independent newspaper. In June, President Mugabe signed into law the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Bill, which introduces stiffer penalties against the publication of falsehoods. Zimbabwean journalists now risk spending 20 years in jail under the new law.

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